Project Simplify Week 3: Kid's Clothes and Toys

Somehow I keep jumping ahead of Tsh at Simple Mom. This week's project was tackling the kids' clothing and toys. Because my children were on March Break last week, we had already completed sorting their clothes -- both outgrown and not favorited  and their summer stuff too. I told them I would not have time to sit for a few hours watching them try on their stuff when their  younger sisters are home too, so we had better get it done while we're on break. I'm glad we did, because it really wouldn't have happened this week -- challenge or not. As for toys in the bedrooms, they have stuffed critters and that's pretty much it. We've never encouraged toys in their rooms as their rooms are for sleeping -- and for one of our children, the fewer distractions there are the better, so no toys.

As the children have grown, the toys have flown. They've never really had an abundance of toys, so getting rid of the not-so-popular ones has been easy. We've hung on to some of the classics -- the wooden railroad set, Duplo, wooden blocks, farm animals, and assorted kitchen items.

I love this storage system that I bought for them years ago. It has stood up really well, makes the toys visible and gives them some variety to choose from, but not too much that it becomes overwhelming.

The bedrooms on the other hand are a nightmare -- even though all their clothes have been sorted and purged and there's no toys in their rooms. The girls' rooms both lost a window due to our addition, so there is drywall dust everywhere and their furniture is all moved around to accommodate the drywallers. Add to that the fact that they're all craft lovers and seem to need to keep everything, but don't know where to put it and we have a BIG mess. Observe the dressers...

 Peach's. (That big white area was a window).

 Beans's. Her dresser is in the closet right now :o). It gives them a little more room to move around.

Squirt's. Our little collector queen :o).

Then there's the beds (or in Peach's case, the floor because she can't sleep in her bed if she leaves it all on the bed). They're the catchall for everything else...

 Laying there drywall dust and all. Lovely :oS!

Soooo, after collecting all their trash and tidbits I ended up with this boot box. 

We had a snow day (again!) on Wednesday and they went through it and most of it miraculously disappeared (in the trash).

Now their rooms look like this...

Much better -- if you don't count all the drywall dust in there at the moment. Today they are doing the final sanding and Monday the painter comes in to prime. I am soooooo excited! When it's all done I'll post photos again -- if I remember.

What's that? You're wondering about the Boy's room? Oh, well, it still looks like this...

It'll be on the roster for the weekend. Somewhere in there are summer clothes and I need to find them so I can get him started on packing for the Philippines. I wonder where they are...

If you're cleaning and decluttering too, I hope you're having fun! I know I've been enjoying it!